Bruce McKay

Following the adventures of a bunch of nobodies who get up to a whole lot of nothing in the fictional prairie town of Dog River, Saskatchewan, Corner Gas focuses on the life (or lack thereof) of Brent LeRoy, proprietor of a gas station that is the only stop for miles around and a hub of action on the Prairies.

Portland, 1988. Filmmaker Gus Van Sant shoots Drugstore Cowboy, the project that will bring he and his collaborators a formidable burst of mainstream attention. Starring Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch, and Heather Graham, the film follows a roving quartet of drug addicts — and, consequently, drug thieves, especially from the businesses of the title — who wash up in Portland's then-gritty Pearl District. A death among their own spooks the leader of the pack into trying to clean up, and an encounter with a sepulchral junkie priest does its part to convince him further. Or maybe we should call him a Junkie priest, portrayed as he is by a controversial cameo from writer William S. Burroughs. "I'm going back to the old days," Burroughs says of his role early in the above documentary on the making of Drugstore Cowboy. "The old days when they used to give people morphine in jail. The old days before the methadone programs."

A quietly meditative drama as hermetic and allusive as a minimalist short story. Spiritual discontent of three leads is compellingly rendered, but characters are too opaque for pic to strike dramatic sparks.

Dalton Leash has been forced to leave his home and the people he loves. A victim of family disgrace and shame, he wanders aimlessly, though a chance for redemption comes his way when his half-brother from Australia offers him a job looking after an upscale girls' riding academy.